A catheter, in a broad sense, is defined as a tube inserted into a body for treatment.
The catheter may be classified into an endoscope-type catheter having a photographing device such as a camera to examine an inner part such that an internal organ may be examined, a catheter having a drug supplying tube to supply a drug to the internal organ, a catheter to burn and remove a tumor, etc. by irradiating a laser to the internal organ and a rotating catheter having a bendable end part for treating a intervertebral disk, etc.
For a technology related to the catheter, a technology having a tube to supply drugs, a wire to rotate a shaft, a driving device to rotate the shaft by pulling the wire is disclosed in FIG. 2a and FIG. 2B in page 4 and page 5 of U.S. Pat. No. 6,146,355 (Steerable catheter, Patent document 1).
In FIG. 2, the catheter of patent document 1 is illustrated.
According to the technology, the doctor in charge removes a tailbone side of a patient and inserts the shaft of the catheter 1 into a spine of the patient by controlling the catheter by using the driving device through the removed tailbone side such that drugs are supplied to a desired location or treat the patient by applying stimulus to the disk by transversely rotating a front end of the shaft.
However, in this case, during the treatment, the size or shape of the path, through which the shaft 2 is inserted, varies according to the movement of the patient or the physical state of the patient, so a possibility of malpractice is high.
Therefore, an endoscope catheter, which may separately identify an internal state, is inserted along with a catheter having the shaft rotated by the wire (3), however, because two catheters are inserted into a narrow space, moving the shaft is difficult, and rotating the front end of the treatment catheter to stimulate or supply drugs is difficult.
To solve the problems, a catheter having a hole into which an optical fiber 4 is inserted, a hole into which a camera is inserted and a hole into which the wire to rotate the shaft front end is disclosed in FIG. 5 of page 4 of U.S. Pat. No. 5,396,880 (Endoscope for direct visualization of the spine and epidural space, Patent document 2).
In FIG. 3, a cross section of the catheter of patent document 2 is illustrated.
However, according to the technology, when a hole to inject the drug is formed, at least five holes are required, so the diameter of the shaft becomes larger, and when the diameter of the shaft becomes larger, the catheter is not appropriate for a procedure in which the shaft is inserted into a narrow space such as for the disk treatment.
In addition, in the process of bending the front end of the shaft according the movement of the wire, the integrated camera may not appropriately move together to photograph the internal part of the body, and to solve this problem, a connecting part to connect the camera to the shaft is required, but the diameter of the shaft becomes larger so the catheter is inappropriate.
As related arts, there is U.S. Pat. No. 6,146,355 (2000.11.14, Patent document 1).